This pillar of research is led by Sheri Markose and supported by Thonkom Arun, Sachin Chaturvedi, Victor Murinde, Reji Joseph, K. J. Joseph, Philip Kostov, and Priyadarshi Dash.
We need to identify what changes could be made to regulation, policy, practice and investment to increase the quantity and maximise the benefits of FinTech trade between India and the UK. Key to the development and growth of successful FinTech trade is the issue of appropriate regulatory and policy environments. Ensuring the safe and ethical use of data in digital services will be important for ensuring that solutions are broadly acceptable, both to regulators and ultimately to consumers, whose trust levels and perceptions of data security are essential for the adoption of FinTech services (Stewart and Jürjens 2018).
Emerging technologies like big data and deep learning are critical for FinTech. These technologies rely on data collected from various sources, which may include personal data. This raises a number of privacy and ethical issues. How does the evolving personal data protection regulation in both countries impact the development of such technologies? Consumer-oriented FinTech gathers personal data that may amount to the breach of an individual’s privacy. There are also concerns especially when the personal data crosses the border and the host country of the data does not have any control over the use of such data. On the other hand, such data is critical for the development of new technologies.
Analysis of regulatory and policy framework
We will analyse and assess regulatory, policy, practice and investment documents in order to identify what changes could be made to increase the quantity and maximise the benefits of FinTech trade between India and the UK. Our analysis will focus on documents such as regulatory frameworks and policy documents, principally from India and the UK, as well as EU documents to the extent they still inform UK requirements at the time of study. Where the broader literature indicates particular lessons may be learnt from other nations (e.g. pairs of countries that have successfully engendered relevant bilateral trade), we may broaden our analysis to understand the factors in their successes. The aim of this analysis will be to understand the context in which bilateral trade takes place.
